Strategy of Democratic Forces for the 2025 Elections: To Boycott or to Participate

The democratic forces are at a crossroads in formulating their strategy for the 2025 presidential elections. Political organizations are likely to attempt to influence the internal Belarusian agenda and mobilize supporters during the electoral campaign. However, their capabilities have been significantly reduced due to four years of repression.

The democratic forces are beginning discussions on their strategy for the 2025 presidential campaign, albeit with some delay. The ruling class has already started pre-election campaigning for Lukashenka amid the establishment of his personality cult.

Political organizations have long ignored the internal Belarusian agenda. Instead, the democratic forces have focused their efforts on promoting civil society interests in communication with the West.

Currently, the democratic forces have only preliminary plans. They aim to adopt a common strategy for the 2025 electoral campaign at the “New Belarus” conference in early August.

Despite the democratic forces’ efforts to mitigate the consequences, sanctions have negatively impacted the mobility of Belarusians. Meanwhile, the Lukashenka regime and loyal businesses are adapting to the restrictions. In turn, mobility obstacles reduce pro-European sentiments in society. This situation aids the ruling class’s policy of isolating society and addresses personnel shortages.

The narrowing of the pro-European audience limits the mobilization potential of the democratic forces. Political organizations have declared a pro-European course and thus target this audience.

In response to Lukashenka’s introduction of visa-free travel for Europeans, the head of the United Transitional Cabinet, Pavel Latushka, suggested that foreign journalists and human rights activists visit Belarus. However, this is unlikely to remedy the consequences of the sanctions rhetoric and the increased difficulties in crossing the Belarusian-European borders.

Meanwhile, the potential of civil society and horizontal connections within the country appear almost destroyed. This is the result of four years of authoritarian reaction. There are no noticeable initiatives for support and crowdfunding for those affected by the hurricane in the Homel region. In the face of the state’s inability to respond quickly to crises, civil society shows no signs of self-organization and mobilization to help, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Thus, the democratic forces lack the potential for large-scale protest mobilization of supporters of change during the elections. However, ignoring internal political campaigns would further isolate political organizations from their audiences.